Overall I found this book pretty boring. I didn't connect much with the characters and their mission and its particulars didn't drag me along without them. The few characters who felt well-reasoned and rounded at the start just sort of felt abandoned into characatures later on. The descriptive sprawl of endless nothingness of Mars is a pretty apt analogy to what it felt like reading this.

I should note that the novel is well researched and thought out. The political questions it raises about the reality of a martian settlement are sound. Sound, but boring. ( )

Undoubtedly one of Kim Stanley Robinson’s best works, Red Mars is a masterpiece in every respect. Sweeping changes are occurring on Mars throughout the story, but underneath it all, Robinson is careful not to lose sight of the human condition.

One thing that Robinson does so well in his novels is to tell gripping, fully-realized character-based stories. Though many of his works fail to climax in a tense, page-turning fashion, readers still find themselves flipping page after page, and falling deeper and deeper into the characters.

Red Mars uses these characters in excellent fashion, as we get into the minds of Maya Toitovna, and John Boone, the first man on Mars. We also see the seedier lives, in the personas of Frank Chalmers and even a bit of Ann Clayborne, Mars’ first Red. All of these characters have interesting, intriguing stories that live through their personalities. Kim Stanley Robinson fleshes out the characters so well in fact, it’s hard to believe they’re not real people. Red Mars feels like more of an historical recounting than a tale about the future colonization of Mars.

I remember reading the Mars trilogy several years ago, when most of the attention had moved away from it to other novels. They were the first books by Robinson I had read, and I simply devoured them. Since that time, I have read many of his other books, including The Years of Rice and Salt, which was no less ambitious.

So it was that as I get on this "Robinson kick" that I found myself craving the original works that I enjoyed so much. Indeed, while re-reading Red Mars, I found myself remembering events I had forgotten all about, while eagerly awaiting the events I knew were coming. The fall of the elevator, for instance, and the floods that claimed the life of Chalmers. And yet I had forgotten things like the revolution, and the fall of Phobos.

I believe I enjoyed Red Mars more this second time around. Perhaps it’s because I’m older, perhaps not. I do know that it took me less time to read than the first time around. Which nowadays is an accomplishment.

So the question is, would I recommend this book? Not to just anyone. Robinson is one of those authors the reader has to appreciate. If not a dedicated bibliophile, the reader may not enjoy Robinson’s work, as often, they are not terribly exciting books, but rather, intricate studies of the human mind and spirit, and about our connection to the world we live in. They’re nearly philosophical in context, and a thoughtful reader will find themselves reexamining their views and opinions about a great many things when reading Robinson’s work. It makes for great reading, but not average excitement.

So if you enjoy a fantastic book, and like to be challenged into thinking new thoughts, and most especially, have never read Red Mars you must do so immediately. Borrow my copy, if need be. Do not limit yourself any longer. ( )

Both a classic of sci-fi and of literary fiction. Come for the engineering and the colonization of Mars, stay for the the treatise on humans and politics. ( )

I wanted to like this more than I did. I loved the idea of what colonizing Mars might look like but I wanted more of the nitty-gritty. The original group landed on Mars with birds, for heaven's sake - how did that happen? What was the science for getting them there? Too much of the science was just assumed with no explanation. And then the story itself ended up being more about politics and power plays. Fine as far as that goes, but Mars just felt like a backdrop for a very common tale. ( )

What a wonderfully thorough novel. If there’s one thing I love, it’s fiction that establishes its setting so well that the reader is transported there. This happens more often in longer novels, such as [b:Dominion|15770927|Dominion|C.J. Sansom|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1343294802s/15770927.jpg|21478950] and [b:The Goldfinch|17333223|The Goldfinch|Donna Tartt|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1451554970s/17333223.jpg|24065147]. ‘Red Mars’ managed to immerse me such that I read the latter 400 pages in one sitting. Kim Stanley Robinson’s future history of Mars colonisation is remarkably plausible and has aged impressively well in 24 years. Of course I could not help but be hooked by an examination of economic and political tensions inherent in colonisation of a new planet. Science fiction tends to focus on the hard sciences whilst neglecting social sciences; here both are given plenty of space and their interdependencies respected. Time is also given to the cultural differences between colonists of various nationalities, including a delightful interlude with Martian Sufis. Characters have excellent political discussions that aren’t neatly resolved or presented as a right/wrong binary. The whole book gives every impression of having been carefully thought through, which makes it a very satisfying, substantive read.

On top of that, the plot is very exciting and includes some spectacular, cinematic set-pieces (which I won’t spoil). I also appreciated the range of narrators, each a member of the ‘first hundred’ to arrive on Mars. All are flawed, convincing, intriguing characters. Although not given perhaps as much time to narrate, women are as important to events as men. Indeed, ‘Red Mars’ manages that rare trick of depicting a main female character as love interest to two male main characters in a sort of love triangle, without the woman being defined by this or the triangle dominating her actions. It helps that the relationships between the three are anchored in wider political dynamics, rather than it just being some tedious romantic wrangle. I found both John and Frank fascinating characters, without being terribly likeable. Both did admirable and awful things by turns. Nadia, Arkady, and Hiroko were more immediately sympathetic, perhaps because the reader spends less time in their heads (Hiroko remains especially enigmatic) and therefore doesn’t know what terrible compromises they’ve made. Transnational corporations and governments try to exploit Mars, while each the first hundred chooses their own battles - a sequence of events which I certainly found very convincing.

There was also the odd line that I’ve basically said myself:

"Anyway, that’s a large part of what economics is - people arbitrarily, or as a matter of taste, assigning numerical values to non-numerical things. And then pretending that they haven’t made the numbers up, which they have. Economics is like astrology in that sense, except that economics serves to justify the current power structure, and so it has a lot of fervent believers among the powerful."

Kim Stanley Robinson transports readers to Mars, the geography of which is evoked just as vividly as the culture and politics. Immersed in this world, you wonder how you’d react in the place of one of the first hundred, or as a later colonist. ‘Red Mars’ is pleasure to read and then contemplate. Naturally I’ll be searching the library for its sequels. ( )